On an Afternoon Train from Purley to Victoria (1955) by James Berry (AQA 'Worlds and Lives' cluster)

You heard it here first - as featured in the new AQA poetry cluster Worlds and Lives.
On an Afternoon Train from Purley to Victoria, 1955 (1995) by by James Berry
Hello, she said, and startled me.
Nice day. Nice day I agreed.
I am a Quaker she said and Sunday
I was moved in silence
to speak a poem loudly
for racial brotherhood.
I was thoughtful, then said
what poem came on like that?
One the moment inspired she said.
I was again thoughtful.
Inexplicably I saw
empty city streets lit dimly
in a day’s first hours.
Alongside in darkness
was my father’s big banana field.
Where are you from? she said.
Jamaica I said.
What part of Africa is Jamaica? she said.
Where Ireland is near Lapland I said.
Hard to see why you leave
such sunny country she said.
Snow falls elsewhere I said.
So sincere she was beautiful
as people sat down around us.
[e-mail]
____
COPYRIGHT ISSUES? - Please (!) - Before contacting youtube officially and requesting an official Takedown - which results in this Non-monetized channel getting a strike - (and potential oblivion) please consider contacting me personally: [e-mail] and I will immediately remove the material.
[e-mail]
_________
All clips uploaded solely for celebration and education....
All clips have currently been passed by youtube copyright software, but I appreciate that individual copyright holders may still wish to manually protect their copyright by issuing a retrospective takedown order. Before contacting youtube officially - which results in this channel getting a strike - please consider contacting me personally: [e-mail] and I will immediately remove the material.
(Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, education or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.)